Large buckets such as five gallon buckets for housing and transporting a variety of liquids such as paint, industrial oils and related materials, cooking oils and the like are generally universal in construction and carry a lid or cover which is tightly sealed around the top rim of the cylindrical bucket walls. These lids are generally constructed to have a lower lip which extends at a certain angle with respect to vertical so as to enable a lid removal tool to more easily apply an upward torquing force to the lid when it is desired to open the can or bucket. In addition, the vertical cylindrical walls of the cover normally have open slots or thin grooves therein which first must be cut through to release the press fit force which, together with a sealant, tightly holds the lid in place prior to usage.
As a result of the above combination of the press fit lid and sealant between the lid and the top rim of the bucket, these lids have been extremely difficult to remove, even when using tools which are specifically designed for such lid removal.
Once such tool employs a C-shaped cavity at one end of a handle typically molded in plastic, and an example of such a tool is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,967,436 issued to Russell, incorporated herein by reference.
Another such tool comprises an elongated flat piece with prongs and spikes on one surface thereof for piercing the slots in the bucket and for leveraging against the sides of the lid and the sides of the bucket during lid removal. An example of such a tool is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,631,769 issued to White, also incorporated herein by reference.
Generally speaking, all of the above prior art lid removal tools are inefficient in operation, difficult and unsafe to handle, and are simply unable to allow the user to rapidly and easily remove the above described tightly sealed lids from large buckets, particularly by not-so-strong and able bodied persons. It is the solution to this latter problem to which the present invention is directed.